Savage Coast by Muriel Rukeyser

looked around the compartment, at the stiff wooden benches, the walls, the metal heat of sun on still wood.
    She thanked them. “But I’d better find the others,” she insisted, “the American woman is alone, too, and they tell me there are other Americans here.”
    â€œYes,” said the grandmother. “You’ll have to find them. We’ll ask at the café about a place to sleep, and, if you want us, the café will know where we went. Here—” she plucked at her son’s elbow. He reached for the heavy black suitcase, and set it on the bench.
    â€œBetter go up to first,” he advised, the slow unshaven smile channeling his cheeks. “There are cushions there, anyway.”
    They were ready to leave.
    The fair-haired boy took the package of food and slung it over his shoulder. He was still eating almonds, and his pointed teeth glittered. As he took his grandmother’s hand, he turned suddenly to Helen, with a volunteer look in the startling iodine eyes. “Goodbye,” he said rapidly, trying the word in English.
    SHE KICKED THE suitcase before her through the connection between the cars, kicking it against the feet of a stranger whose thick glasses seemed over-smooth and blazing on his heavily pitted face.
    He dodged to the side, escaping apologies.
    â€œAre you American?”
    â€œNo,” he answered, still in French. “I am Swiss. There is a Swiss team on the train, 72 but I’m not with it. Are you looking for the Americans who are going to the Olympics in Barcelona?”
    She was speaking eagerly, the words falling on each other. If only I were fluent, now, she thought, I need words now!
    â€œThey’ve been looking for you, too,” the Swiss told her. “They heard there were two more Americans on the train. 73 You must be the other woman . . .”
    â€œDo you know about the General Strike?”
    â€œReally?” the Swiss exclaimed, his look of surprise sunk deep in the pockmarked forehead. “Is that what it is?”
    He picked her suitcase up easily, and turned.
    â€œCome on through,” he said, “I’ll show you where they are. They’ll want to hear.”
    He led the way through the empty corridor of the first-class car. Voices came from one of the doors, half rolled back on its little groove. He swung it back all the way.
    â€œMay I introduce the American lady?” he said, with mock-formality. “And the news: it’s General Strike!”
    â€œWE JUST HEARD,” the man answered, pronouncing in careful French, his mouth shaded by the brown mustache on the long, sensitive lip. He sat against one window, his head thrown back against the antimacassar, his hand stretched out over the clasped hands of the woman who was next to him. “Hello!” he said, in English, to Helen. “Nice day.” And grinned. “We’ve been looking for you.”
    â€œYes,” the dark woman beside him agreed. “They’ve given us at least five different descriptions of you, and none of them fit. Her cheeks caught shadow, her curly hair turned over her forehead, the broad planes of her face missed being Negroid because of the sharp mouth.
    â€œI was in third,” Helen said, looking at the two other women who sat across from the couple.
    One was tall, and the red blouse she wore pulled, with its color, at the pointed collarbones, the greenish throat and face; the other shrank, rather sickly, beside her, with her head on one side, listening.
    â€œWait a minute, I can’t hear,” interrupted the tall one nearest the window, “the radio’s started again.”
    A tremendous voice, like a voice in an airplane, started to expound. It seemed sourceless, deity; it said a few peremptory phrases, came to a violent close, and the music started again, a soft Spanish dance played from a recording.
    They waited until the music started. “There, that’s news of the